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Sharing the Wealth

It's tempting to think of knowledge as power, and that the more we keep to ourselves, the more authority, importance, and responsibility we have. But is that really an effective way to work?

This is a story of two bosses, one who hoards information in order to guarantee his authority, and one who shares it with his employees. There are two attitudes at work here: one characterized by power, the other by trust. As an employee, which would you respond to?

Clearly, people respond to trust. If you give it to them, they will instinctively want to live up to it. If they don't feel valued or respected, their work will suffer. Beyond that, aren't we called to respect all men as children of God? Cultivating an open, collaborative work environment makes good business sense, but even more importantly...it is part of the high calling of our daily work.

Transcript: This is a tale of two bosses. Boss No. 1 sees information as gold to be hoarded. He shares on a need-to-know basis...and he believes that few people need to know. So don’t ask him, either—that makes you suspect.

Boss No. 2 shares the wealth. Information isn’t gold to be hoarded but a seed to be planted. Subordinates are looped in early and often. The more that people know, the more they can grow in their jobs.

This is Howard Butt, Jr., of Laity Lodge. Ask anyone who works for anyone else, and she’ll tell you this: the best bosses are inclusive. The best bosses grow their own success by cultivating others’...in the high calling of our daily work.

You can find more videos like this one over at the High Calling Youtube Channel.

Leadership

Leaders must reckon with a variety of practical pressures: deadlines, financial benchmarks, reputations, production requirements. Yet we are called to lead in response to God's call for our lives, not in response to manmade pressures. This may involve worrying more about broad human flourishing than next quarter's profits, or caring for individual team members more than what "big boss" thinks of us. When we lead from the soul, we lead for the sake of God's pleasure, not the pleasure of others. And when we do this, we live into the freedom that only he can give us.